Over in Lincoln County the Davenport Public Library is doing business, but not quite as usual. In 2013 they were the beneficiaries of a Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program (BTOP) grant as well as a LSTA grant both administered by the Washington State Library. We recently heard from Katy Pike, a librarian at the Davenport library about some of the ways that implementing this grant has impacted the Davenport community. First the numbers. Their speeds used to be a slow 1.5 mbps download and .5 upload. After on average they now receive 20 mbps download and 22 mbps upload speeds. Quite a change.

Katy reports that before the grant it was impossible to run a public and staff computer on the same internet line without competing for the very limited bandwidth.  With the upgrades this is no longer true. Other benefits to the patrons are that many people in the community now use the library computers for filing tax returns, applying for DSHS benefits, career development, online education, and information or entertainment needs. And because of the broadband the Davenport Library now has the capacity to run Microsoft IT Academy from its public computers which will allow the local residents to increase their computer skills, which hopefully will lead to better jobs.

But the best part of the story is not about numbers but about people. Katy told us three of the kind of stories we love to hear, and they seemed like stories to share.

As soon as the library was set up with higher speeds, a teen girl in our community was able to utilize DPL’s internet to meet her homework and entertainment needs. Originally, the internet speed was not sufficient enough to load online programs that were accessible to visually impaired patrons. Now, this young lady uses the library’s downloadable book service and Wi-Fi.

Our fire station across the street from DPL utilized the library’s Wi-Fi when retraining volunteer firefighters in CPR/First Aid. (It was needed to access the instructor’s online education materials.)

The sewing business next door to DPL is utilizes the Wi-Fi to teach crafting classes and to conduct other business transactions.

Katy said that while the library is open only sixteen hours a week, the Wi-Fi extends beyond the walls of the library. People often use the library’s Wi-Fi just by sitting in their cars after hours. All in all, it sounds like the library’s broadband is having a wide range effect on the Davenport community.

Finally a quote from Katy, “E-rate, the equipment awarded from the 2013 Broadband grant, and technology expertise from the Washington State Library allowed the Davenport Public Library to successfully participate with the BTOP grant. The [Davenport] library doesn’t have consistent tech support and doesn’t have the necessary infrastructure to have participated without guidance from the Washington State Library.”

The Washington State Library is working diligently to help support the libraries and by extension the residents of Washington State. Thanks to Katy for sharing her story with us. How has the State Library impacted your community?

From the desk of Steve Willis, Central Library Services Program Manager of the Washington State Library

My Father was an accountant, and when he wanted us kids to get sleepy and not stay up too late, all he had to do was talk about his job. But before you dismiss the profession of accounting as a boring and tedious vocation, consider this front page story from the Sept. 14, 1911 issue of the Olympia Daily Recorder:

STATE OFFICIAL IN SHERIFF’S IRONS — TRIES ON ANKLET ONLY TO FIND KEY IS LOST

“Another state official was in sheriff’s irons at the court house this morning and secured his release with difficulty, although without bail. F.H. Lieben, member of the state board of supervision and inspection of public offices literally put himself in the toils, not of the law but of the implements of the law, and as he sat ruminating at the ways of folly, swore by the board of the prophet, the sacred bull of Osiris, Anthony Comstock and such other traditional symbols of grace and virtue that if he ever got out this time he never would get in again. Lieben, whose business it is to examine the accounts of public officers to see that they don’t get too careless in office, himself got too careless in the office of Sheriff Gaston, and trying on one of the big leg irons out of curiosity, had his curiosity amply satisfied when he discovered he could not get it off and the key could not be found. And for more than an hour Lieben sat and winced at the jibes of the county officials who dropped in to see the new prisoner, and at the clanking galling ankle iron. Some were for getting him a copy of Byron’s ‘Prisoner of Chilon’ to read for consolation, but Lieben would have none of poetry. He wanted ‘out,’ nothing else.”

“Lieben called on the sheriff this morning about 8 o’clock on a matter of business. While the two were talking Lieben toyed with a pair of heavy leg irons and when the sheriff had his back turned slipped one the anklets on. The irons are worked by a spring lock and Lieben found himself caught tight around the ankle. Explaining how it happened they slipped tighter until they pinched uncomfortably.”

“For a half hour the sheriff conducted an unavailing search for the key. In the meantime pretended news of the arrest of Lieben on a serious charge was spread through the court house and officials gathered to josh him. After trying all the keys in the office without getting one to work, Clyde Duval, the forest ranger, began to file one down but this was slow, so Charles Talcott was called into consultation. While he was making a key Duval finished his and the leg irons were finally slipped off the state officer. He tried his best to cajole the crowd that had gathered and the newspaper men to secrecy but they wouldn’t fall, and so the story is being told all about town.”

Francis Henry Lieben was born Sept. 21, 1860 in Dubuque, Iowa. He was raised in Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. In the late 1890s, along with his wife Mary and son Howard, he migrated to Davenport, Washington, where he worked as a bookkeeper. In 1909 the family moved to Seattle.

Lieben found employment as one of the original three board members of the Bureau of Inspection and Supervision of Public offices, which was created in 1909 as a department of the State Auditor. This watchdog trio must have been effective in finding accounting problems in local governments. Someone disliked them enough to get an initiative on the ballot in 1914 to abolish the Bureau. Initiative Measure No. 7, which is found in the very first Washington voter’s pamphlet, was soundly defeated by the voters in 1914.

In a publication describing their mission ca. 1917, the Bureau commented:

“It cannot be expected that governing officers having disregarded the welfare of their constituents will call in examiners to expose their shortcomings.”

“The public spoke after a strenuous campaign in 1915 [i.e. 1914] on Initiative Measure No. 7 in no uncertain way by sustaining the bureau by a large majority.”

“It is to be regretted that designing politicians who know nothing of our work and care less, having never darkened our doors should on account of some personal pique, biennially harass and belittle so important a work as is being accomplished by the Bureau.”

The Bureau existed until 1921, when it was superceded by the Dept. of Efficiency. The Washington State Library has several publications from the short-lived Bureau.

Meanwhile, Lieben served on the Bureau until Jan. 1913, when he became a regular examiner for the State Auditor. He retired in 1932.

In Sept. 1918 his ankle once again made the news. A truck ran over his left foot at the corner of Madison and 2nd in downtown Seattle, and the newspaper thought Lieben might have to have the foot and ankle amputated. A month later his wife Mary died.

He remarried in 1921 and lived a long life, dying in Seattle Dec. 3, 1958, age 98.

A couple of the background characters in the above news article are worth noting. George Gaston (1849-1930) was Sheriff and later Assessor of Thurston County. He was married to a descendant of African-American Tumwater pioneer George Washington Bush. Charles Talcott (1854-1939) was an early Olympia jeweler  who is known as the designer of the original Washington State seal in 1889.

The Olympia Daily Recorder can be counted as one of the ancestors of the current Olympian news paper.